


Tentative Engagements

by SoriSeeraKyra



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
Genre: Anger, Angst, Captivity, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Self-Preservation, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 16:39:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13368813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoriSeeraKyra/pseuds/SoriSeeraKyra
Summary: You've been captured by the First Order thanks to the resistance, as your body and spirit begin to give out due to the torture you are experiencing, your circumstance suddenly change.





	Tentative Engagements

**Author's Note:**

> Request from Tumblr

I

It feels like being ripped apart. That’s the best way for you to describe it. Your throat is raw and you’ve lost the ability to scream. He’d been doing this to you for a week, or at least it felt that way. You still had no idea what he wanted, if you did you would have given it to him without a fight.

 

A part of you blamed the Resistance for this. Of course, they weren’t the evil force going around destroying people’s villages, capturing and torturing people, but they were the ones apparently going around and hiding information in these villages. Their attempts to keep information out of the hands of the First Order was putting people who wanted no part of this conflict at risk.

 

You let out a sigh as you try to relax, but the metal table you were locked into was more than uncomfortable. Aside from the cuffs on your wrists and your ankles, there was a metal piece jutting out of the table, pushing gently on your spine, making it so that you had to maintain an unnatural arch to your body.  Your toes and fingers are numbed, the tightness of the cuffs limiting the blood flow.  You weren’t sure how long you would have until your limbs officially gave out.

 

Luckily for you, it seemed like you wouldn’t have to endure the pain of your limbs for too much longer. Your torturer had returned; the hiss of the cell door opening and his robes billowing behind him.

 

He doesn’t say anything as he begins to pace around the room. Your eyes lazily follow his steps, his pacing is almost frantic; an irritated step to his gait. He’s mumbling to himself, hands clenching and reacting in a twitchy manner, it’s almost like he doesn’t know you’re here.

 

Almost.

 

The moment you lift your body up to adjust yourself, his masked faced snaps to you, and the pacing stops. You wish you could see his eyes, that way you could rationalize to yourself that he isn’t a monster, maybe your heart would slow down when you realized that he was just as human as you were and not some boogie man.

 

“You’ve deceived me.” He starts looking at you with a cock of his masked head.

 

It takes a while for your tired, abused brain to makes sense of what the strange man is saying, but after a few moments you manage to force out a mumbled, “What?”

 

“You’ve caused me to waste all of this time on you, and now the resistance is gone.”

 

_‘Of course, they are,_ ’ you thought bitterly, _‘They never stick around to face the consequences.’_

Curious, that’s the only word you can use to describe the tilt of the head he gives you. As if you had done something that he hadn’t been expecting. A wave of realization washes over you as the haze of your mind clears up, the memory of him reading your thoughts appearing.

 

_‘He heard me’_

 

“I heard you.”

 

Your eyes stare at him lazily, if you had been well you would imagine they would appear bucked with worry, but as your situation continues to deteriorate, these slightly hooded eyes are the best that you can manage.

 

He doesn’t say anything, likely realizing that you honestly have no information to provide to him, and from the hue of your thoughts, would not have hid anything from him if you did.

 

He stares you down again, watching as those hazy eyes of yours begin to shut. He tries to probe your thoughts, but realizes there are none. You’ve slipped away, not dead, but unconscious.

 

He backs away from the table, perhaps he was hasty in his interrogation of you.

 

***

There is a coolness washing through your belly as you begin to open your eyes. A gloved white hand invades your vision as you begin to swallow, realizing that water is being poured into your mouth. The hand pulls itself away and your gaze follows the appendage back to the hosts body.

 

She doesn’t have a name tag and majority of her face is covered, but the white uniform and the gloved hands tell you that she is a medical officer.

 

She places the cup down next to her, a clacking letting you know that there is a table next to you. You realize that you are laying back, staring into the bright lights of the ceiling, a position that is much easier on your back than the previous upright had been, although there was still the issue of the protrusion of metal resting in your back.

 

She places a hand on your forehead pulling at the skin, examining your eyes with a clinical gaze. A strange thought bubbles up in your mind, a desire for her to move her hand from your forehead to rest on your cheek, so that you can feel a bit of warmth, a bit of affection. It leaves a feeling of dread collecting in your stomach, being desperate for human touch is not something that is good. It’s a sign that your loosing yourself.

 

“It will take a while, sir, but her levels of dehydration are already decreasing,” the woman above you says suddenly, as she lets go of your skin.

 

Its only then that you are made aware of the other presence in the room and hear the thundering of his boots.

 

He doesn’t respond and he leaves, the door hissing open and closed.

 

The doctor looked into her eyes again, gaze empty as she continued to examine you, pulling gently at your skin. When she’s finished with her poking and prodding she heads to the door herself, she pauses before she leaves.

 

“You’re lucky, I don’t think you’re going to die here.”

 

The door hisses, opens and closes once again.

 

You sit there in silence. Normally, you would probably mull over the words, maybe take them as a sign of hope. But you couldn’t help but think what the actuality of the situation would be. If you didn’t die here, you would most likely be made into a slave, so while not physically dying, a spiritual death may be eminent.

 

***

You’d probably be tortured for this, although it was no fault of your own. You stare down at your wrist which is now hanging limply at your side again, as the table was positioned up right.

 

The creases of your eyes burn as hot tears begin to well up, no matter how you tried, when you slipped your hand back into the cuff it just wouldn’t stay. You were thin, too thin, and you imagined that your other wrist would fall out of the other cuff rather soon as well. If that happened, you aren’t sure that you’d be able to keep yourself up right, they would definitely think that you were trying to escape.

 

“Damn them,” you hiss to yourself. Part of it is directed at the First Order and the monster that keeps you imprisoned here, but majority of it is aimed at the resistance. If they had never come to your village, your lazy, fruitful, now decimated village, you wouldn’t be in this situation. You wouldn’t have been captured, or tortured, or interrogated, or dying. You’d still be in your mother’s shop, sewing and weaving gowns and jewelry. You’d be eating your fathers cooking, trying to outrun your brother through the forests. You’d be happy.

 

The door hisses and you can’t hold the sob that rocks through your body when he steps in the room. When he steps in he immediately pauses, seeing your sobbing form.

 

“I didn’t,” you start weakly with a shake of your head. The water you’d been given helped to keep you awake, helped you stop feeling like you were completely dying, but the lack of food made you weak. “I didn’t try to leave.”

 

He doesn’t say anything to you, instead walks toward you.

 

You close your eyes, letting your fear consume you. _‘I hate them so much.’_

 

The footsteps pause in front of you and as much as you can, you try to prepare your mind for the vicious probing that you’d been used to.

 

Instead, a new sensation runs through your body; leather against your skin. Your arm is lifted in a rather delicate touch, and you take the chance to open your eyes. His masked face is there, in front of you, but he seems not to be looking at you, but at your abused wrist.

 

His thumb rubs at the bruised skin there, examining it. The touch was not particularly gentle, although you doubted that would have mattered, and your skin begin to break; thin from the lack of nutrients. The burning sensation runs through your arm causing you to let out a rather pathetic gasp of pain.

 

The moment that your lips part in pain he snaps his attention to your face, and you are sure that he’s looking into your eyes, even if you can’t see them. Unceremoniously, he lets go of your arm and it falls against the metal table with a thump. You let out a scream, as a small cracking sound rings through your ears. The tears are falling heavily now, not with fear but in pain, as your arm hangs even more limply at your side.

 

It seems as though causing you pain was not his intention. At your screech of pain his body instinctively rocks back slightly, weight shifting to his heels.  He hesitates for a moment, observing you as your cries dial back into small whimpers.

 

He raises his hand in front of your face but before you can let out a plead for him not to hurt you, vision goes black.

 

***

You’re warm, warmer than you have been in a long time. There is something soft behind your head, almost soft enough to be a pillow. Your fingers begin to move, feeling at the soft fabric.

 

Your eyes snap open when you realize that your both of your eyes are down by your sides, unrestrained.

 

The room is dark even though the lights are on. The walls a sterile dark gray color, the sheets pitch black, with furniture all corresponding with a shade along the spectrum of these two colors.

 

You bite your lip to suppress a moan of pain as you sit up. You’re alone in this room. There is a constant hum running through the room, and in some way, it’s comforting. There is no sound in the interrogation room; sensory deprivation is key in torture.

 

Next to you there is a night stand, and you almost can’t contain the joy that runs through your form, as on top of the nightstand lies a tray of fruit. You aren’t sure what they are, you hadn’t seen anything like this grown on your planet nor in the markets. Still, you pick up a purplish green fruit and bite into its rind. A sigh of pleasure runs through you as the sweetness of the juice runs over your tongue.

 

_‘Heaven’_

 

It doesn’t take long for you to finish the tray. When you’re finished and put the tray down on the table there is almost an immediate hissing from a room beyond the one that you are in.

 

Fear runs through you, and you find yourself huddling down underneath the sheets. You can’t hear any footsteps and you doubt that you would be able to, the anxiety building in your chest is causing your heart to thud like a hammer in your chest and the sound echoes in your ears.

 

The door to the bedroom opens and you shut your eyes, waiting for your captor to reveal himself to you.

 

But nothing happens.

 

Soft whirring runs through your ears and for a moment you feel brave enough to peek from beneath the safety of your sheets.  As you sit up your able to catch the back of a protocol droid removing the tray of fruit that was left for you. A quick glance to the table beside you and you see that where the tray once laid, sits glasses and pitcher of water.

 

Your panic recedes, albeit temporary.

 

***

It’s strange to you how personally impersonal this room is. There are no trinkets, no keepsakes, nothing that indicated at life outside of the First Order. Everything in here seemed to be standard issue, aside from the size of the rather large bed you had been resting on.  Yet, the furniture, the walls, the sheets of the bed, were black. Clearly someone took the time to have all of this personalized.

 

That’s not the only thing that you have discovered either. There are small fist size dents that litter the walls, randomly, most likely done in fits of rage. They reminded you of the tantrums you used to have as child, when you would kick at the various objects in your room, leaving small scuffs. Little reminders of your inability to control your temper.  You had managed to grow out of such a phase, but this person clearly hasn’t.

 

You stand, wobbly kneed, in front of the small window that occupied the room. It gave a view of the large snow-covered planet. You wished the view you were given was that of your village, the green of the forests and the deep blue of the rivers, but the snow was a welcome change to the drab black that you’d been surrounded by for the past week.

 

Suddenly a sound you hadn’t heard before rings through your ears. The familiar hiss of the room door opening, was followed by heavy decisive footsteps. Panic rises in you, and you begin to try to hurry your way to the bed, so you can hide. In your haste however, your still weak knees give out. Your kneecaps make contact with the floor sending a violent shock of pain up your spine. Tears pool instantly at the corners of your eyes and screech of pain rips from your lips with them.

 

At the moment, the owner of the room decides to step in. The door hisses and reveals to you the masked man, the one who had tortured you to this point.

 

You both stay there for a moment in relative silence, save for your quiet mewls of pain.

 

He begins to move forward and you move back slightly, but it doesn’t stop him.

 

“I haven’t touched anything,” you manage to squeeze out through your tears.

 

He remains wordless and instead he comes to your side, kneeling next to you. His arm wraps around your back and the other hooks itself at the bend of your knees. Quickly you’re pulled against his chest and heaved into the air. You look up at his masked face with wide confused eyes.

 

Strong arms cradle you against his chest and he takes long strides to hurry you to the bed. You’re put down surprisingly gently.

 

“You’re still hurt,” He states flatly, or at least what you think is flatly. His voice is distorted through his mask and so it is hard to tell how he said it. “Why did you get up?”

 

You don’t answer, still staring up at him warily, with wide eyes. He cocks his head.

 

“The view isn’t going to change from that window,” he starts. “It’s always going to be snow. Don’t get up until you’re better.”

 

With slight spin, he disappears behind the one door that you hadn’t been able to open in the room.

 

It takes about thirty seconds of quiet before you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding.

 

It takes ten minutes for your shoulders to relax from their tense position. The stinging pain in your knee begins to subside and you work your way beneath the sheets.

 

You are up for another hour before sleep starts to overcome you. It doesn’t seem like he’ll be coming out soon. He’d been silent since entering the small room.

 

Your eyes start to feel heavy and you are overcome with sleep.

 

***

There is a man in bed with you. Heart pounding your hand slowly comes up to quiet your rapid startled breathing. Thick dark hair frames the pale face.  His full lips seem to be drawn in a perpetual pout, and his eyebrows are drawn together in slight agitation.  His body is twitching, it’s a tell-tale sign of a nightmare or at least a bad dream.

 

You stare at the man, unmoving. You know who it is, even if his appearance is not what you expected. You waver for a moment, would it be best to simply return to sleep, or would he find your presence bothersome if he awoke and saw that you were in his bed? Surely, he can’t have minded too much, he is the one who put you here the first place.

 

“Be silent,” rumbles from his lips. The deepness of his voice causes you to startle, but you aren’t afraid as there is nothing that signifies anger, merely drowsiness. “You are so loud.”

 

You blink confusedly for a second, before realizing that your thoughts and questions must have disturbed him.

 

“Sorry,” You mumble as a dark brown eye opens to study you in the dark. You decide it would be best to simply close your eyes and go back to sleep. Clearly, he wasn’t going to throw you out or force you to sleep on the ground.

 

You end up turning your back to him and you fall asleep dreaming that you weren’t stuck on some isolated world in the unknown regions, but instead back on your parent’s homestead.

 

***

He’s interesting? Is that the right word for it? You aren’t sure, but it’s what you have decided to settle upon, anything else would be rude. Majority of the day you are alone; you wager he must be out looking for the map that he had been interrogating you about. Whatever it leads to must be important.

 

He’s often angry when he returns, that much you know not because he tells you or displays it you toward anyway, but on the occasion that you poke your head out of his quarters, there is of an announcement that runs through the entire base calling for the tell-tale combination of repair technician and janitors, and occasionally for a medical officer if there happened to be an officer that had been in the path of his rage. It seemed he had a habit of destroying things when he was angry.

 

 

Yet, despite the rage he often displayed, you have learned to not allow it to scare you. Perhaps because apart of you had become stronger as a result of your torture by his hand, a part of you no longer feared pain the way you once had. However, it was more likely it was because he tended to avoid you like the plague. In fact, aside from the small room he kept you out of, this felt more like your room than it did his. He was rarely there, as he was in the midst of search for that map. When he did return, he often stormed into his quarters, cape flowing behind him with an angry gust of wind making it whip behind him like it was full of life, until the tail of robes would flit helplessly on the ground. He’d remove his mask angrily and sometimes stare at the face plate, before slamming in down onto one of the counters. Sometimes he would acknowledge your presence by flashing those dark eyes at you, but mostly he would go and lock himself into the small room until he would stalk out and join you in the bed.

 

 

Today, was no different he walked in and slammed the mask down, but he paused today. Lingering with a slight sway to his body. Your brows furrow as you observe him. You’d seen that sway many times before. Your father often got it when he worked himself to the bone and he was so tired he could barely stand. You had no doubt that the man had been working himself rabid, as there were days when he did not return.

 

You open your mouth to say something, anything, the familiar visage causing a wave of sympathy to rise up in your body before you can help it. But he doesn’t give you the opportunity to offer the words, instead he storms into your shared bed room, the door hissing shut behind him rather violently.  You jump at the sound, your throat clenching in slight surprise.

 

It’s quiet for a moment as you sit unmoving on the couch. Then a scream of frustration rocks through your ears. His loud bellow causes the room to shake slightly, and it feels like you are being squeezed. His anger seems to subside rather quickly and you were able to relax.

 

He didn’t come out though and you wondered if he had screamed himself to sleep, much in the way a child would have.

 

Curiosity washes over you as you stand from your position on the couch. You pad as quietly as you can over to the door. It opens for you and as you step in quietly. You find him deep in thought sitting on the edge of the bed.

 

He glances up at you, watching your every move rather warily as you approach him.

 

“If you’re stressed, I can help,” you start meekly, waiting for his response. When he doesn’t give you one you continue. “My mother used to show me the way to get someone to relax. She said it would make it easier for them to sleep too.”

 

He looks at you skeptically, “Why would you want to help me?”

 

“Self-preservation,” You say honestly, and though you know you should walk it back and say something a little more inconspicuous, you can’t bring yourself to hide the truth.

 

And you find it slightly ironic that your honesty seemed to be the best response. A slight chuckle runs through the lanky man. He nods his head at you, wordlessly giving you his consent.

 

You quickly shuffle behind the man and your hands are quickly attached to his shoulders.

 

Its awkward. You quickly realize that you are rubbing the shoulders of a man that is virtually a stranger, one who tortured you, and, for all intents and purposes, is holding you hostage in his room. Not only that but the thick fabric of his tunic is hard and isn’t allowing you to actually rub his shoulders, so instead of a massage the only thing that you are doing is bunching up the fabric and causing your fingers to ache.

 

_‘It’s not like I can ask him to take his shirt off’_ you think to yourself with a grimace as you continue to rub.

 

You can feel him tense under your touch and you remove your hands from him quickly. He sits forward after a moment. And to your slight surprise he leans forward and pulls the clothing from his form, revealing the pale expanse of his back. You’re slightly surprised that he’s so accommodating, but you more surprised that it’s human skin under the garment. You aren’t sure what you were expecting to see, but it’s just a back. It was well muscled, that was perhaps surprising as well, the dark robes that he wore made him look thinner and lankier than he actually was, but it was still just a back. There were no scars from blaster fire or any other type of weapon, it was just a rather a pale flawless expanse of skin.

 

“Well?” He questions flatly.

 

“Sorry,” you say realizing you were staring at him.

 

Your hands find their way to rest on the top of his shoulders. The warmth of his skin shocks you. You bite your lip in embarrassment as you realize a part of you still thought that he wasn’t actually human, that he was nothing more than a high functioning droid, even after you’d seen his face.

 

Your thumbs press into his skin, feeling the tense stiffness of his muscles. Your dig your fingers deep into his shoulders and press your thumbs into his back, digging into the muscle there. He groans slightly when you hit a knot that is particularly tight and your hands are off of him in an instant.

 

“It’s fine,” Instantly realizing that you thought he was going to hurt you because of the noise he had made.

 

Your hands find their way back to his shoulders and you begin rubbing again, albeit slightly gentler than before, even if he had said that it wasn’t a big deal you didn’t want to take any chances, in case a part of him wanted to change his mind.

 

This goes on for some time, you don’t know for how long, and it is almost impossible to tell time while in this dark room, you just know that eventually his eyes close and you swear that he has fallen asleep, but you keep rubbing anyway.

 

“Will you do something for me?” he questions suddenly.

 

You blink at the question, slightly surprised that he is asking instead of just taking what he wants, “Okay.”

 

“Laydown,” he commands, and you tense at the words as panic runs through you. You don’t know if it’s the look on your face or the thoughts running through your mind, but he looks rather offended at your terror. “Just do it.”

 

Reluctantly, you scoot away from him, into the middle of the bed and lay back on the pillows. He stands from his position on the bed and he looks at you with analytical black eyes. You close your eyes, not wanting to watch what would happen next.

 

You feel the bed dip under his weight, and you exhale out heavily, trying to calm your nerves. You almost let out a screech when his body presses against yours, his slightly wide frame engulfing you completely. However, once he is on top of you he doesn’t move except to position his head over your heart and presses his ear against your chest cavity.

 

You open your eyes only to have your vision blocked by a mop of dark inky black hair. You notice that his body is getting slightly heavier with each passing breath and you realize that he is using you as some sort of person sized pillow.  The panic and tension leaves your body almost instantly, although there is a slight annoyance that you won’t be able to move until he’s had his rest.

 

You maneuver your free hand and you find that it rests rather comfortably on the area right beneath his shoulder blades. Your face is heated by the rather intimate position, but soon you find yourself getting sleepy as well. The rhythmic breathing of his sleep pattern has put you in a rather hypnotized state and you’re soon surrounded in darkness.

 

He sleeps with his ear to your heart every night, he says it puts his mind at ease.

 

 

***

Something horrible has happened and you are lucky to be alive. You realize that as you watch the various officers around you sit crying and rocking themselves in comfort. Only a few souls made it to the transports you realize as you pull away from the base that is slowly exploding in front of you. There is no way that the entire planet was able to evacuate. It’s a shame really.  You realize that you probably only escaped with your life because you were in the commander’s quarters, which of course were strategically positioned close enough to an emergency exit. No one blinked twice when you shuffled your way on to the tiny ship, you were invisible right now, while they were searching for their friends.

 

Your own eyes quickly scanned the tiny transport for your “roommate” fruitlessly, as you know it would be unlikely for him to be in such a place. He had left the room in a hurry, storming out muttering something about the girl he had brought back with him waking up. That had been the last time you’d seen the man, and you’d be lying to yourself if you said you weren’t worried.

 

It doesn’t take long before your transport lands in the docking bay of a star destroyer, but you aren’t allowed to go anywhere. Apparently, this is just a temporary holding area.

 

“We’re going to be transferred to the Eclipse, the Supreme Leader’s ship.” A blonde comm officer tells you trying to keep herself from busting out into tears again.

 

You didn’t know what that meant, Supreme Leader that is, wasn’t Kylo the leader? He is the one with the strange powers after all.

 

Time passes in what feels like seconds.

 

“It’s huge,” you mutter to yourself. And a part of you thought that huge was a bit of an understatement, you had never seen a ship this size. Never fathomed that ships could be that size. It was so dark too, almost as black as the space that surrounded it.

 

You quickly docked and were forced to de board and wait.

 

“You there!” A voice calls and you turn to see an officer looking at you rather sternly. “What is your business on this ship.”

 

You aren’t sure what to say. You didn’t have any business on this ship, you were just there for…What were you here for? If you had any sense perhaps it would have been best try and commandeer the transport, at least that way you could pretended that you were still just a prisoner.

 

“I’m here for Kylo Ren,” You say after a moment and the officer looked like he was prepared to call someone to have you “escorted” out of here.

 

He doesn’t say anything and just raises a dark eyebrow at you rather skeptically. There was no one to validate your account, you slowly begin to realize, you never actually left your-no, his room, you only had your words to try and mitigate your safety.

 

He opens his mouth to say something and you are sure that he is going to toss you out or call a guard or someone, but it doesn’t happen. Instead you watch with strange fascination as his eyes go wide with fear. You knew that look, knew the twitch of pain that went through your mind when it was being invaded by someone. Had Kylo done the same thing to him?

 

“I-I’m to bring you to the supreme leader.” He says with a slightly stunned gaze.

 

That title again, who was that?

 

“Follow me,” he says in a clipped tone. He starts with long strides over to an elevator and you are quick to follow behind the man.

 

He stops at what you assume to be the top floor and he beckons you once again to follow him. He leads you to a large black door but this time, he steps to the side and simply motions with his head for you to move forward. You meet his gaze nervously but he averts his eyes from you when he catches your gaze. Were you going to die?

 

The thought sends a wave of nervousness to your belly and apart of you begins to feel like you’re going to vomit.

 

_“Closer.”_

 

You know better than to look back at the officer who had escorted you up to the level, you are familiar enough with Kylo Ren being in your head that you can tell when a voice is talking to you and you alone. So, this is what the officer had been afraid of earlier, why he had turned so pale and looked so worried when he heard the voice. You understood him.

 

It was rough, and gravely, but not in the comforting way a father or grandfathers voice may have been. This was different, it was deep and dark.

_“Don’t keep me waiting, child.”_

 

Is it strange that a voice makes you want to crumble in on yourself? When Kylo was in your head, your fear never came from what he sounded like, it came from what you knew he could do to you. This was something different. The presence in your mind sent shivers down your spine in a way that you never knew could happen. Strangely, being strapped to the interrogation table seemed more favorable than entering the room right now, but you did it anyway.

 

The dark doors hiss open and your eyes are overcome with the red of the room that is before you. It’s partly because the color is so unexpected. You had seen First Order banners with a slight red hue on them, but the facilities that you had been a part of had been either some sort of gray or black. This was the first hint of color that you had seen since you had been captured.

 

The walls weren’t the only thing that was red though. If you moved your eyes quickly enough, the guards that lined wall would likely have blended into the background. They were fierce looking, and although they weren’t moving, you knew they were watching.

 

However, you barely had time consider them, there was someone (something?) sitting in a throne waiting for you. You know that this is the voice that was calling you. His face is clearly disfigured, the stringy flesh on the left side dipping lower than the rest, and a slightly bulging blue eye. Strange face aside, what intrigued you most was the slightly gaudy golden robe that he sported. It seemed strange to see him in such a loud color, especially when everyone else seemed to have their color palette restricted to such dark colors.

 

“So, you’re his pet,” he states with an examining eye. You can’t help but feel small under the scrutiny that he is giving you. “Don’t tell me he hasn’t taught you any manners girl, kneel.”

 

You move to assume the position requested of you but apparently you were too slow, your knees slam to the ground. You mutter a silent thankful prayer that your body had been healed from the ordeal that you had already been put through as a sting of pain shoots through your body.

 

He looks at you with narrowed eyes as he leans forward, eyes looking over your form in a scrutinizing fashion.

 

“That child,” he says after a moment, and you can swear you can see him shake his head in a disappointed way. “He’s allowed his father to corrupt him.”

 

You look with a confused gaze, what did that have to do with you?

 

“Taking in street rats, must be an inherited trait.”

 

“I’m not a street rat,” you think with furrowed eyebrows. But your hand quickly slaps to your mouth as your voice continues to echo in the chamber and you realize that the words has slipped from your mouth.

 

“Oh?” He says with a smirk looking at you rather amusedly, “There is some fire there after all.”

 

You don’t respond to the slight tease, knowing that if you did or said something that he didn’t like he wouldn’t just leave the room in a huff the way that Kylo did, it is more likely that he would kill you were you knelt.

 

“What makes you think that I won’t kill you either way?” He questions with a snide tone.

 

You are left blinking with wide eyes, _‘I didn’t even feel his presence there.’_ You think to yourself. Whenever Kylo was in your mind you could at least feel him lurking, a slight pressure to let you know that you were being watched. With this Supreme Leader however, you could feel no such thing.

 

“Hmm,” he muses. “I wonder what his reaction would be if I were to simply snap your neck right now. How would that affect him?”

 

“I don’t think he cares about me that much, sir” You say quickly, instincts of self-preservation kicking in. “I-I mean Supreme Leader.”

 

He takes a deep breath and exhales with a rather sinister smile crossing his face at your use of his title. “It’s true that you may think so,” he says with a nodding sigh. “But I know his thoughts, and there is an ever-present worry there. A distraction, one could say.”

 

“I promise you I’m nothing of the sort, if he worries for me it’s because he thinks of me as his prisoner to do with as he wishes.” You’re sure he can hear the begging in your tone because it echoes in your mind. You swallow hoping that he would find your rather pathetic tone convincing.

 

It’s silent for a moment, and you are waiting in a state of panic as something is telling you that if he wanted to kill you he wouldn’t need to use his hands to do so. But your life never ends, you don’t fall unconscious.

 

“He’ll need a nurse,” he says after a moment. “Most are too afraid to touch, him. You’ll do it. After that blaster shot to the stomach, the boy can barely walk.”

 

_‘Blaster Shot?’_ You question to yourself.

 

He laughs, “You didn’t know? He was on the brink of death not too long ago, a girl with the resistance nearly killed him.”

 

At the word Resistance, your mouth turns down into a frown, of course they tried to kill him. If the girl had been successful what would have happened to you? He was your only lifeline at this point, and the resistance almost took that from you too.

 

He laughs and you quickly look back at his rather startling gaze realizing that he had been reading your thoughts.

 

“Go child,” he says with a dismissive hand, “When he is better perhaps I will reevaluate your usefulness then.”

 

***

It feels strange just to sit there at his bedside and watch him. He looks different when he sleeps, almost helpless. He isn’t squirming like he usually does when he sleeps and a small part of you is happy that he for once is getting a good night sleep.

 

Your eyes drift over his form and a scowl runs over your features at the black strips that hides the red puffy skin of his new scars. Whoever this girl was she really had almost killed him, any deeper and who knows how much damage she could have done to him. However, that was not really the worst injury that he had sustained.

 

Your hand drifts slowly down to the blanket and you pull it back to revel the thick black bandage wrapped around his waist. The bacta tank had done most of the work, but it would be your job to make sure that he doesn’t reopen or strain the wound.  Your fingers run over the damaged area, the wound had spread as a result of him hitting the wound and fighting with the woman. If he hadn’t been found when he was he probably would have died.

 

Absently your fingers begin to rub over the bandage. How badly must it hurt? The medical officer who gave you the basic rundown of how to care for him had told you that the wound had likely come from a bow caster, a weapon that could kill a Stormtrooper in a single shot. How strong did he have to be not only to survive such a thing?

 

A hand snaps to your wrist and is pulled away from the wound. Your eyes snap up to meet dark angry ones.

 

“You’re awake,” you say with surprise filling your voice.

 

His eyes narrow at your words but he doesn’t say anything. You swallow thickly, “Are you in pain?”

 

You try to pull your arm away from him, so you can get him the pain killers that were left for him by the medical officer. He, however, doesn’t want to let you go.

 

“You’re alive,” He says in a quiet tone, but the way that he is looking at you know that he is slightly surprised about your presence.

 

“For now,” you say as a joke slightly the image of Snoke running through your mind. “So are you.”

 

“For now,” He says in return.

 

You pull slightly on your hand, “I need to get your medicine so you don’t feel any pain.”

 

“I don’t need it.”

 

“Don’t your wounds hurt?” You question in slight surprise.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Then let me help you.” You move to stand but you are pulled back. The back of your knees hit the edge of his bed and your body falls into his mattress.

 

He quickly maneuvers himself and is on top of you before you can say anything in protest. His large warm hand comes up to cover your mouth. A whimper escapes your mouth as his weight presses against you.

 

“Shh,” he hushes. He slowly removes his hand.

 

“You’re going to hurt yourself,” you plead.

 

“I’m fine,” he says plainly.

 

“But-”

 

“Be quiet,” he says rather stonily as he lowers himself on top of you.

 

You let out a sigh as he rests his head on your chest. He lets out a breath as his tense form begins to relax on yours. It reminds you of when he previously rested on you. He moves his head to rest over your heart the same way that he had done back in his room.

 

“I didn’t know that you were hurt,” you say quietly. “I didn’t even know that you had gone to fight.”

 

 

He doesn’t respond and allows you to continue.

 

“Thinking about it now the first thing that I thought of was ‘what’s going to happen to me’ if you died.”

 

“It’s a good thought to have,” he says rather quickly, his deep voice humming through your chest. “Snoke would have had you killed I weren’t here.”

 

“Would you have preferred that?” It’s a question you don’t mean to ask, and it comes off a little needier than it should, and apart of you already know the answer. His body stiffens on top of yours for a moment, and he lifts himself up to look into to your eyes, He stares for a good moment, as if he is trying to decide something, and under such intense scrutiny you begin to feel your face flush causing you to avert your eyes.

 

“No,” he says when he’s finished causing you to cut your eyes back at him in slight surprise. “You bring me comfort.”

 

“Oh.”

 

It’s all you can think to say because you aren’t sure what your response should be. You cared for Kylo in the fact that without him you would probably be dead, even though he was the one putting you in danger in the first place. And after months of being basically cut off from everyone and everything that you had ever known, he had become your one lifeline. So, while you may have brought him comfort what is it that he brought you? Stability? Safety? Sanity? A combination of all three?

 

Your hands find themselves on the bare skin of his back much like they usually do when he does this and rub a gentle hand over the smooth, now scared, skin there. You can physically feel him begin to relax as he begins to fall asleep. You feel strange having the two of you intertwined like this but you quickly adjust.

 

He wasn’t the only one who found times like this comforting.

***

Something strange is happening. There are moments where he seems to leave the world around him. Since he first began walking around there are times when he looks off into space. Like he is seeing someone that isn’t there. You can swear that sometimes you can hear him talking to someone.

 

You write it off, there are things about the force that you are sure that you won’t ever understand and are likely not meant to understand. And you would have been content to keep it that way until you saw who he was talking to.

 

You hadn’t given much thought to knocking when entering Kylo’s quarters because they were yours as well. You wished you’d learned to keep your manners, maybe that way you wouldn’t have felt so hurt by the sight.

 

It was hard to describe it actually. You knew that she wasn’t there but you could see her as well as you could see Kylo. Their hands were touching, gently, like they were uncertain that the other was more than a dream. You can see a tear run down the girls face as he takes a deep breath in. Its rather intimate, and you can’t keep a frown of displeasure from curling across your face.

 

Their moment was broken rather quickly however, when they both snap their heads over looking at something that only they can see. He flinches at whatever it is and he is almost forced out of whatever trance it is that he was in.

 

“Who was that?” Your question comes off more biting that you mean it too.

 

He whips his head to look at you, dark hair sticking to his forehead as if his experience had taken a lot out of him.

 

“No one,” he says quickly standing and turning away from.

 

“That was the Jedi girl wasn’t?” You question already knowing the answer. “The one who hurt you.”

 

He doesn’t respond.

 

“She’s just going to hurt you again,” you say with a flat tone. “She thinks you’re the bad guy.”

 

“She’s going to come, and she’s going to turn to my side.” He says in a rather decisive tone.

 

You bite your lip in frustration, feeling that there would be an argument occurring.

 

“I just don’t want you to get your hopes up,” you say rather dejectedly. “We both know the harm that the resistance can cause.”

 

“What does it matter?” He asks you with a furrowed brow.

 

_‘I don’t want to be replaced,_ ’ Is the thought that runs through your mind. It startles you slightly. Is it something that’s been secretly building up inside you? Maybe. But who could blame you? You spend almost all of your time with him, he listens to your heart to fall asleep, and you had been there watching over his recovery from injuries inflicted by the girl whom he wanted to coerce over to his side. Even he must know somewhere that this isn’t going to go well.

 

“It doesn’t,” you lie.

 

He looks at you with slight distrust in his gaze, he knows your lying, he doesn’t even have to go into your mind to figure that out. By now, you aren’t sure if you would be able to successfully lie to him if you wanted to anyway.

 

You don’t talk for hours after that, relegated to the separate corners of the room, you sit in silence. It’s a strange thing, the silence you are experiencing. It’s not that the two of you were particularly talkative any way shape or form, but this was different. It was tense almost angry silence. The girl isn’t even here yet and she is already ruining things.

 

“I have to go,” he says standing up abruptly. He takes long strides to the door. You are still slightly frustrated with him but you don’t want him to think that you are angry.

 

“Be safe,” you murmur quietly, having an inkling of where he is going. He pauses at the doorway. He turns to look back at you slightly, eyes raking over your form. He doesn’t say anything but he does give you a slight nod before he leaves.

 

 

You sit idly alone now, unsure of what to do with yourself. There was nothing to particularly distract you from you worry, after all you were technically a civilian so this military ship was not meant for you to enjoy.

 

_‘What if she hurts him again?’_ You think to yourself and then a much darker thought comes, _‘What if she does turn?’_ What happens if what he believes comes true. Does she then get to share his bed, take your place, and once again put your life in a precarious position.

 

‘ _He’s made it clear that he has no intention to hurt me, though, at least not any more than he already has, so what will he do with me?’_

A part of you thinks back to your planet, back to your small village. You hadn’t thought about it in a while, because the reality of what likely happened there had been too hard for you to cope with. The truth was you knew what the First Order did to the people whom they suspected of hiding resistance fighters and that there was probably no home left for you to go back to. A part of you wants to yell at yourself, for being so foolish and actually wanting to stay with the man that likely ordered the execution of everyone you have ever known.

 

However, what happened to you now was certainly a matter of self-preservation. Again, what happens if you are no longer useful to Kylo Ren? Would you be doomed to live a short life hunted by the scavengers and raiders who had no doubt come to pick apart your village. Or would he be generous and drop you off on some core world where you would be able to make a life for yourself and forget about the trauma that has been inflicted on you. You grimace at options, knowing that there are a million scenarios in between the two that are likely to happen. What’s best is to simply make sure that you remain useful to him, that he deems as not only a confidant, but someone he needs. That was the only way to truly guarantee your safety.

 

Your thoughts are broken by a shrill alarm ringing through the air. The noise is almost piercing in its timbre and you quickly slap your hands over your ears to protect them.

_‘What’s going-’_

 

You don’t get to finish the thought as something slams into the ship. The impact of it throws you across the room and into a wall head first. Almost instantly a shock of pain runs through your body, but you slip into unconsciousness before you can even get a scream out.

 

 

 

***

You can feel him standing over you, it’s something that you have gotten good at, reading when Kylo is in the room.

 

So, when you open your eyes, you aren’t surprised to see him sitting rather dejectedly at your side. You are surprised, however, to be in such a stark white room. There is the familiar sound of rhythmic beeping and the continuous hum of droids hovering about the room. You’re in the medical bay, that much is clear, but why?

 

“You got hurt when the rebels attacked.”

  

You shift your orbs to meet Kylo’s dark brown ones and you look at him rather surprised, “They attacked…but how? You have the bigger ship.”

 

“One of them launched her ship at us like a torpedo and it ripped through the ship. You hit your head and the smoke inhalation didn’t help either.”

 

“Oh,” you say taking in the information. “Did you get them? The resistance I mean.”

 

He tenses at the question and you know better than to prod, clearly something had happened that caused the rest of the resistance to get away, a failure that he would be more than reluctant to talk about.

 

You take the silence as an opportunity to examine him, “You look different.”

 

At your statement, he blinks slightly and asks, “Do you dislike it?”

 

You think for a moment, the cape was certainly different than the robes that he usually wore, but its openness of it made him seem more confident, is that not a positive?

 

“I don’t mind it,” you say responding with a smile, although something tells you he might not have actually cared and was just asking to be polite. “I’m curious what prompted the change though.”

 

Is there a way to look reluctant and cocky at the same time? You wouldn’t have thought so but he does it.

 

“Snoke is dead.”

 

It’s only three words, but your mind struggles to comprehend what he’s saying. When you met the man, he seemed like something that would be un-killable, but to here he had been disposed of is more than shocking.

 

There is a smirk on his face as you watch his words sink into your mind. You look at him with wide, slightly disbelieving, eyes. “You killed him?”

 

“The girl killed, Snoke,” he says quickly. That doesn’t sound right though, his eyes flick off and up to the left quickly before he returns his gaze to you and you know that he is lying.

 

“So, she didn’t turn then.”

 

His lips pull down at the joy that slips into your voice but he gives you a curt nod of confirmation, “Yes.”

 

You pause and your eyes take in his form again. There is an air of new confidence in his body language, and though his eyes are doing well to conceal it however, there is slight tinge of nervousness in his dark eyes.

 

“You’re the Supreme Leader.”

 

“I am.”

 

You stare at him in slight awe, but as with a hint of worry as well, “Are you going to get rid of me now? You don’t need me anymore.”

 

His dark brow furrows at your question, as if it is silly for you be asking, “I’ve already told, you bring me comfort. Unless you wish to return to you home.”

 

You quickly shake your head at the suggestion, “I don’t think I’d be able to handle it.”

 

“What?”

 

“Being away from you,” You say truthfully. “I’m not the same person I was before you took me, and I’m not sure I’d be able to go on with my life the way I was. You’ve become a constant for me, so in some ways you bring me comfort too.”

 

While what you said is true, you can’t help but feel a little bad for deceiving him. While what you said is true, in that you aren’t sure what life would be like without him, it’s not the primary reason that you wish to stay.

 

He blinks rapidly for a moment and his brow furrowed as if he just realized something. His eyes are slightly glassy with appears to be tears. Before you can comment, he stands rather abruptly and leaves you alone.

***

“You know you can talk to me, don’t you?” You say looking at the newly minted leader as he stared at his reflection in the long mirror. It had been weeks since Snoke’s death and he had taken the opportunity to ascended the position of Supreme Leader.

 

But he was lonely, you could tell it in the way that he walked and in the bitterness of the tone that he used when he was talking to others around him. You could tell he was lonely, because you were lonely too. With his ascendency, you were now able to enjoy a freedom that had you never would have expected to have. Your own lavish rooms and droids to attend to your every need. It was a lifestyle that you were still adjusting too, and one that you weren’t too sure that you wanted. Having this new freedom, meant that you were away from Kylo, which meant that you were away from the only person that you had some semblance of a relationship with, and there weren’t, any in the First Order who were willing to drop everything for you just so you could have someone to talk to.

 

You imagined that being the leader meant that he was going through some of the same things that you were experiencing but on an even larger scale. You know how torn and emotional the man is inside, and now that the man is the one giving orders instead of taking them, he is forced to stew in his own thoughts, in his own rejection and loneliness. You didn’t know much about his past, and a part of you felt that you didn’t need to, you could read what was happening on his face.

 

Once you realized the reason for his slightly dejected mood, it was clear what it was your position would be in this new world, and why someone like him was seduced by Snoke in the first place. He was a needy little boy in many ways, and he needed constant reassurance that he isn’t and would never be alone. You could do that, rather easily, and it you wouldn’t even be forcing yourself.  Still, you needed to be careful off your thoughts and actions, you didn’t want to push it too far, otherwise you would end up like Snoke, or worse Hux.

 

You take the opportunity to come closer to him and you take his hand in yours and squeeze gently hoping to drive home the point that you were trying to make. “You don’t have to force yourself to be alone. I can help.”

 

He watches through the mirror as you take his large gloved hand in yours and press it against your cheek, you lean into the palm slightly, and he can’t help but let his thumb run gently across the bone of your cheek causing a smile to run across your face.

 

“It can be just the two of us, like it used to be. You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, we can do anything you want, but you don’t have to be alone.”

 

“I’m not strong with the Force so I can’t understand everything, but I’m human and I understand a little about loneliness.”

 

Shock isn’t one of the emotions that you can see that you have ever seen Kylo experience, and you aren’t sure if the slight widening of his eyes counts as such a thing, but he does seem slightly surprised at your words.

 

He turns to face you fully, the hand on your cheek no longer needing to be held up by your own, “Do you mean that?”

 

“I’ve never lied to you, not even when you had me strapped to that table.”

 

He searches your eyes for a second, as if he is looking for something, and when he satisfied, he does something that shocks you. The hand slips from your cheek and buries itself into the hair at the nape of your neck, angling it up slightly, and the other arm comes to wrap around your waist. He leans down and presses his lips hotly against yours in an ardent meeting of your lips. You’ve been kissed before, but never with so much need, it almost scares you how much emotion is poured into this kiss, but you can’t help but respond in a similar manner.

 

He pulls away from you and presses his forehead against yours while keeping his eyes closed, as if he is already reliving the moment in his head. Your hand comes up to trace the now healed scars that run up and down the side if his face, he shivers slightly at your touch. His eyes open to meet yours and you’re slightly startled by the amount of resolve that is present in his eyes.

 

“We’re the only two people that matter then,” he says it as a statement, but his tone makes it comes off as a question.

 

You nod, with a slight bit of hesitation, “Yes, just us.”                                                                                                                                                   

 


End file.
